Distance
by unfold
Summary: Another JimPam oneshot. 'A breeze blows through his hair and he hangs his head a bit, fakes another smile that she can hear all the way in Scranton.' Uh, spoilers up to Dwight's Speech, I guess.


**A/N: For the purposes of this story, let's pretend there isn't a major time difference between Pennsylvania and Australia. Okay? Okay. Awesome. The image of Jim in Australia just randomly popped into my head and so I wrote this. Let me know what you think.

* * *

**

The image: Jim on some sunny Australian beach, talking to her on his cell phone as he's squinting through sunglasses at the sun and curling his toes in the sand. And he's saying, "You should be here. You should see this." A breeze blows through his hair and he hangs his head a bit, fakes another smile that she can hear all the way in Scranton. He says, "It's amazing here. I would have asked you to come with me, if you weren't…" The sentence gets swept away by the wind and floats on the surface of the water. Away, away.

And she's dressed up for her rehearsal dinner and she's hid herself in a closet or the kitchen or somewhere away from everything and this is the first time she's talked to him since he left and her wedding's tomorrow and she hasn't felt happy, really happy until this phone call. Because she can feel the warmth of the sand and the sun and his voice. This is when she realizes that all of this is one huge mistake. And it's like having your life flash before your eyes; she's forced to sift through all of these moments when she should've realized. The back of her eyelids turn into a screen and his eyes are projected onto it and she's lonely now.

She tries to say, "I'm sorry." But she stops as it occurs to her that she's about to apologize for getting married, for being with someone else. Still, the words are on the tip of her tongue, ready to jump and she wonders if she means it. No, she knows she means it. She's sorry for not realizing this earlier. She's sorry for not looking over whenever his face fell. She's sorry for not taking chances.

Meanwhile, he's kicking up the sand. He's wondering if the 26 hour flight was worth it. He's sure this isn't helping anything. At the time, he was seized by this urgent need to distance himself. Physically and emotionally. But had he accomplished either of these? On the outside, it would seem that way. At some point, he had stopped talking to her the way he used to and she stopped sending him smiles throughout the day and he stopped looking up every 34 seconds to see what she was doing. They simply stopped and acted as if this was natural. Right, they were just growing apart.

If he's being honest, he hates to travel. And he's already homesick in an almost crippling way. He's been here one day and he wants nothing more than to crawl back into that gray hole that is Scranton.

Which is why he's called her six times already. The first phone call was just to say he got there safely. The second was to tell her how amazing his hotel room was. The third was just to check in. The fourth was to ask her to tell Kevin that there was a nude beach five miles from where he was staying. The fifth was to inform her of the contents of his mini bar. And this was the sixth, made as he's staring at this infinite stretch of impossibly blue water, to tell her indirectly that this means nothing without her. That pretty much everything means nothing without her. He wants to tell her that he should be overwhelmed by the beauty of this and that he would be if it was accompanied by her fingers on the back of his neck, instinctively playing with his hair.

But he can't say any of this because she's getting married tomorrow. It doesn't matter anymore.

She tries to ignore the noise of the rehearsal dinner and focus only on the smooth edges of his voice. She's crying, but she doesn't realize it until she touches her face and her fingertips are black and wet. But he's laughing into the receiver at something and she wants to ask him how he can laugh. Then she remembers that they've both become so good at lying to themselves. And he doesn't know that she's dying too.

Someone calls her name and it's Roy. She's been gone for too long. He pokes his head through the door and spots her. He's drunk and he leans in a bit and says, "Baby, come on. People are starting to think that maybe you ran off on me." He laughs, kisses her sloppily on the cheek and leaves again. All she can think now is, Don't throw up. Just don't throw up.

The phone is still glued to the side of her face and she can hear him breathing on the other end. He says, "Yeah, you should probably go," with a flat voice that isn't meant to be convincing.

She feels dizzy and she can't remember the conversation they've had at all. This sends her into some sort of panic. All she remembers is warmth. All she remembers is the sound of his smile. And maybe she missed something important due to her inattention to details. She holds the phone tighter.

"Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

She snaps her phone shut and stands, straightening out her skirt, wiping her eyes, and steadying herself for a moment before going back out into the crowd of family and friends that expect her to be overjoyed and overcome with excitement. It's a good thing she's had so much practice at faking.

A wave crashes and he digs his toes as deeply into the sand as he can and thinks that maybe he could stay here.


End file.
